Obama 45%, Santorum 34%

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum continues to trail President Obama by double-digits in a hypothetical 2012 presidential election. 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Obama earning support from 45% of Likely Voters, while Santorum receives 34% of the vote.  Eleven percent (11%) prefers some other candidate, and another 10% are not sure.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The latest findings show little change from July, when the president held a 45% to 31% advantage over Santorum. 

“As with almost all the early 2012 match-up polling, the results say more about President Obama than they do about the Republican challenger,” according to Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. “Whether it’s Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Chris Christie, or Rick Santorum as the Republican hopeful, the president’s vote total ends up in the mid-40s.”

Santorum has struggled to garnish as much media attention as his rival GOP hopefuls.  He is stuck in single digits nationally in the Republican primary race.  Among GOP voters in New Hampshire, Santorum earns the lowest amount of support when pitted against his fellow Republican candidates. 

A Generic Republican candidate has now led the president by single digits in weekly polling for nearly three months.  Rasmussen Reports updates that number every Tuesday at 3 pm Eastern. The president’s Job Approval rating is updated daily.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on October 2-3, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.